This combination of three photos shows, from left, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, Attorney General Jerry Brown and San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom. Handsome, charismatic and politically bold, Gavin Newsom and his Southern California counterpart, Antonio Villaraigosa, are naturals to take over California's Democratic Party for the next generation. There's just one obstacle, and he's a formidable one: Former two-term governor Jerry Brown. (AP Photo)

Backers of a November ballot measure banning gay and lesbian marriages in California rushed to an appellate court Friday after a Sacramento judge rejected their challenge to the state's formal description of their initiative - that it "eliminates (the) right of same-sex couples to marry."

That's the language that will accompany Proposition 8 on every ballot and in every voter pamphlet, unless the court intervenes before the close of business Monday, the deadline for sending election material to the state printer.

But his most important ruling involved the title and summary - the voters' official, state-sanctioned introduction to the measure - which Attorney General Jerry Brown redrafted after the state Supreme Court struck down California's previous marriage restrictions on May 15.

Before the ruling, Brown had titled the initiative as a "Limit on Marriage," the label on petitions that collected 1.2 million signatures. But after the court ruled 4-3 that the previous ban on same-sex marriage violated the California Constitution, Brown retitled the ballot measure, saying it now eliminated rights that the court had established.

Religious conservatives who sponsored Prop. 8 objected vehemently, saying the new wording was a biased argument - not a neutral description - and was designed to encourage voters to oppose the measure.

The fairest title, they said, would be the actual text of the initiative: "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California."

At a hearing Thursday, Andrew Pugno, lawyer for the Prop. 8 sponsors, told Frawley that the new ballot language would "throw the legitimacy of the election into question because it is so one-sided."

Pugno conceded, however, that the court had legalized same-sex marriage - a point stressed Friday by Frawley, who said the ruling "unequivocally held that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry." As a consequence, he said, a ballot title based on the premise that such a right exists "is not argumentative, prejudicial or controversial."

"The attorney general did not abuse his discretion in concluding that the chief purpose and effect of the initiative is to eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry," wrote Frawley, a former Sacramento prosecutor who was appointed to the bench by Gov. Gray Davis in 2002.

While another title, like "Limitation on Marriage," might be "more accurate and complete," he said, Brown legally described the measure's impact.

The Yes on 8 campaign was indignant.

"Since the Superior Court would not exercise its authority to protect voters against misleading language, we will ask the appellate court to do so," said Pugno before filing an emergency motion with the state Court of Appeal.

Geoff Kors, executive director of the gay-rights group Equality California, responded, "It's important that voters know exactly what this measure would do, which is to change the Constitution to eliminate a fundamental right, the right to marry, from one group of people."

Brown said the lawsuit against his ballot title "was more about politics than the law."

On another issue, Frawley found that the Yes on 8 campaign had overstated its ballot argument on the measure's impact on public schools, but ordered only a minor change in wording.

Arguments signed by supporters of the measure included a claim that the Supreme Court's legalization of same-sex marriage will require teachers to tell their students, as young as kindergarten age, that same-sex marriage is the same as opposite-sex marriage - in other words, that "gay marriage is okay."

The pro-Prop. 8 campaign cited a state law requiring schools that teach a health curriculum to include instruction on the legal and financial aspects of marriage.

The No on 8 campaign countered that state law does not require instruction on health, marriage or same-sex marriage and that parents in California have the right to remove their children from any health class that conflicts with the parents' values.

Frawley said the Yes on 8 argument was false because instruction on marriage is not required and parents can withdraw their children.

But - noting each side's right to argue its case to the voters - he said the ballot argument could be preserved by rewording it to state that teachers "may" or "could" be required to tell children there is no difference between same-sex and opposite-sex marriage.